Another article reflected the authorities’ annoyance with the settlement’s residents. They were newcomers, mostly from the United States, who had been given government subsidies to live on confiscated Palestinian land. Most could barely speak Hebrew, and Israelis saw them as soft and feckless—Jews who had not yet been hardened by the military or the realities of the country. “These people hate each other. If they didn’t have us to brutalize, they’d be killing each other,” Bilal said.
